General Notes

Handsome and extravagant, excelling in all knightly accomplishments, anda personal friend of the Prince of Wales, Sir Miles died too soon todevelop those domestic qualities which distinguished his cousin ofHaddlesey and his younger brother Sir Brian. Nevertheless he had alreadycommenced carrying out a project which he had long had in mind, ofinstituting a College of Trinitarians or Mathurins at Ingham, and on the26th June, 1360, he obtained the King's licence to set it aside, orsuspend, the Statute of Mortmain, which prohibited all such piouspurposes. The Order of Mathurins had been in-stituted in France at theend of the 12th century, for the Redemption of Captives taken by theTurks; and a house was first established in England, at Mottenden inKent. Ingham is said to have become their principal house in later years.The author of a little story published at the restoration of InghamChurch in 1875, finds a motive for his work of charity in an incident inthe life of Sir Oliver Ingham. He tells how Sir Oliver went to Spainabout 1340, and offered his services to King Alphonso of Castile. After asevere battle with the Saracens in the Sierra Morena, he was missing, andwandered in the mountains for several days. He was on the point of beingtaken by a party of the enemy, "as he lay in peaceful slumber on a rock,"when he was found by some of his own men. For this providential delivery,he vowed to give half his lands to found a House for the Redemption ofCaptives, and Sir Miles was therefore only carrying out the wishes of hisfather-in-law. We are not aware story rests that this interesting littleon any evidence whatever. The "peaceful slumber" on the rock, may havebeen suggested by the monument at Ingham and the large round pebbles onwhich the figure rests. But whatever the Founder's design, sometraditions of the Crusades evi-dently hang about the church. The patronSaint of the Sta-peltons was honoured at Ingham as well as North Morton,for in 1782, a quantity of panel-painting of the 14th century wasdiscovered, representing the common legends of the life of St. Nicholas.Although it no longer exists, drawings have fortunately been preserved byMr. Dawson Turner, which are now in the British Museum.
Source:   "The Stapletons of Bedale and Norfolk"http://members.nbci.com/StapletonGC/book/sy/chptr2.html